Capital can be invested in stable assets like land and property, or dynamic assets like a business. Business investments are attractive as they often deliver returns far above those from stable assets — if run well. Delivering a better return on investment therefore is the economic reason most businesses exist.
Yet owners often have a higher purpose as well. While they may have an insight into a more profitable way of doing something, they may also be trying to improve something they care deeply about as well. Articulating this purpose convincingly enables them to attract the capital and talent needed to realise it.
Clear communication of the owner’s intent — what they want the business to achieve — is therefore essential. But this is not a marketing task for writing a motivating vision of the future. It’s about continually learning and thinking what success can look like, in what field of play, and why this should also matters to others.
This is ‘grand strategy’: a commitment to a direction that the business must now explain: ‘how are we’re going to achieve this’.
From grand strategy to business strategy
The first step is for the owner and business to work together on breaking down the grand strategy into ‘aims to achieve’ and ‘problems to overcome’. These will become the missions the business focuses on.
A critical skill business leaders must develop is the ability to:
Yet, many leaders neglect to set missions — leading to the following mistakes:
Confusion through silence: Leaders mistakenly assume everyone knows the aims of the business and key problems to solve — so should ‘just get on with it’. Yet, insufficient communication of critical information leads to widespread misalignment and waste across the organisation as talent works on the wrong things.
Leadership overreach: Leaders now feel the pressure to find solutions themselves. But intuition — the application of past patterns to current situations — is less reliable in rapidly-changing environments full of uncertainty. A leader alone never has all the answers — no matter how smart or experienced they are.
Success in complex business environments requires insights — unexpected connections that lead to better action — that can come from anywhere. The business leader’s role is to cultivate insights and coordinate the lines of action they trigger to all run in the same direction: in pursuit of the grand strategy.
It’s why leaders who articulate aims and problems clearly get more done, with less effort, quicker than rivals.
Quick test
Can you name the top 3-5 ‘aims to achieve’ or ‘problems to solve’ your business is working on today?
If not, is it because missions haven’t been identified for the organisation, or just not communicated?
What next?
In the next post, we’ll explore what well-articulated missions look like and how to create them.
Yet owners often have a higher purpose as well. While they may have an insight into a more profitable way of doing something, they may also be trying to improve something they care deeply about as well. Articulating this purpose convincingly enables them to attract the capital and talent needed to realise it.
Clear communication of the owner’s intent — what they want the business to achieve — is therefore essential. But this is not a marketing task for writing a motivating vision of the future. It’s about continually learning and thinking what success can look like, in what field of play, and why this should also matters to others.
This is ‘grand strategy’: a commitment to a direction that the business must now explain: ‘how are we’re going to achieve this’.
From grand strategy to business strategy
The first step is for the owner and business to work together on breaking down the grand strategy into ‘aims to achieve’ and ‘problems to overcome’. These will become the missions the business focuses on.
A critical skill business leaders must develop is the ability to:
- Identify the CORRECT ‘intermediate aims to pursue’ and ‘immediate problems to solve’.
- Clearly articulate these missions to the rest of the business BEFORE anyone jumps into action.
Yet, many leaders neglect to set missions — leading to the following mistakes:
Confusion through silence: Leaders mistakenly assume everyone knows the aims of the business and key problems to solve — so should ‘just get on with it’. Yet, insufficient communication of critical information leads to widespread misalignment and waste across the organisation as talent works on the wrong things.
Leadership overreach: Leaders now feel the pressure to find solutions themselves. But intuition — the application of past patterns to current situations — is less reliable in rapidly-changing environments full of uncertainty. A leader alone never has all the answers — no matter how smart or experienced they are.
Success in complex business environments requires insights — unexpected connections that lead to better action — that can come from anywhere. The business leader’s role is to cultivate insights and coordinate the lines of action they trigger to all run in the same direction: in pursuit of the grand strategy.
It’s why leaders who articulate aims and problems clearly get more done, with less effort, quicker than rivals.
Quick test
Can you name the top 3-5 ‘aims to achieve’ or ‘problems to solve’ your business is working on today?
If not, is it because missions haven’t been identified for the organisation, or just not communicated?
What next?
In the next post, we’ll explore what well-articulated missions look like and how to create them.
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